The paramedic wheeled the stretcher into the back of the ambulance, got in beside it, and pulled the double doors closed. The ambulance backed up in the very tracks left by the Bastard’s truck, then eased carefully down the driveway as if its cargo were as precious as an injured human being.
The officer watched from beside me. Then he looked at me and frowned. “You okay?”
“Tired,” I said.
“No kidding. You did a great thing.”
I hadn’t done anything great. If anything, I’d been reckless and stupid, letting my vivid imagination get away with me, making me think I could be as heroic as the people I wrote about.
“What do we do about my car?” I asked. “It’s crumpled on the side of the road by Whale Cove State Park.”
“I’ll take care of it,” the officer said. “And we’ll need you to make a statement whenever you’re ready.”
“I’m ready now.” I wanted this incident behind me.
I didn’t want to think about Wicked or the Bastard or Ike’s helpless hatred of both. I wanted to go back to my office and use my vivid imagination to create stories.
I thought it would be easy to go back. But I found I couldn’t shake the memories. Which is why I’m writing this.
Wicked is home. He’ll limp badly, and he’ll be a mostly indoor dog. The incident changed his temperament — or, as Ike says, being helpless has. Wicked lost all the aggression that made him the nasty little piece of work he was.
Roxy’s divorce went through. The Bastard pled out to the minimum on both kidnapping and the armed robbery. He’ll be gone for years.
And the neighborhood has gone back to normal. Except that people ask me for advice now, as if my impulsive actions have given me some kind of wisdom.
Actually, old Mrs. Gailton says they don’t see me as wise so much as the neighborhood leader. The mayor of Crest Hill subdivision.
Apparently, it’s an appointed position. It’s certainly not one I want.
I blame Wicked. If it hadn’t been for the little bastard, I’d still be the mostly invisible weird writer who lives next to the Maizes, not the thriller writer who channels James Bond in his off-time.
So I hide in my office with the Goddess. She hunts raccoons again, having no interest in Wicked now that he’s not barking incessantly.
I have a little more interest. Sometimes I wonder what he went through while the Bastard had him. Sometimes I wonder if Wicked realized he meant nothing to the man who had trained him. And I wonder if the little dog had wanted to die when the Bastard tossed him onto the driveway.
I’ll never know, and Wicked will never tell.
He’s quiet these days. Isabel actually stands guard over him, as if she understands the changes, too.
Sometimes, in the middle of the afternoon, when no one’s around, I go to the Maizes’ yard and pet him.
I have the sense that, ever since the incident, Wicked needs comfort.
And I know that I do, too.
On the Banks of the Khorad Dur
by Brian Muir
Brian Muir is nothing if not inventive, a quality that may have developed through his work as a writer for Hollywood movies of various genres. He gives his imagination free reign in this story, which contains a tale within a tale and ranges over centuries and continents. A native Oregonian, Mr. Muir most often contributes stories in his Portland female private eye series to EQMM. The series now boasts a completed novel, one we’re sure will be a stunning first when it’s sold and released.
I write this by the dim light of a moon which hangs over the dune crest, its hue deep crimson, as if enwombed with the blood of those that have perished before me this night. I fear I have little time. But I must pause to record these events, for the story must be told.
My charges, though young, are not inexperienced. Those remaining stand nearby on the banks of this dead river, scanning the horizon, arrows notched bravely to string. Far off on darkened sands, our pursuers travel low to the ground, jaws slavering as they sniff out the scent of our dread, as comfortable on all fours as we are on two, furred knuckles the size of falcon eggs.
It is the palimpsest they want, the one I’ve stolen, but I will lay down my very life to protect it if need be, and given what has transpired this wicked eve, that may indeed be the dark outcome.
“Palimp...? Palimps...? What the hell’s a—”
“Palimpsest,” chirped Mira, reading small letters highlighted by her fingertip on the dictionary page, the weighty tome open on her lap. “ ‘Palimpsest: a parchment, tablet, etc. that has been written upon or inscribed two or three times, the previous text or texts having been imperfectly erased and remaining, therefore, still partly visible.’ Hm.”
“ ‘Hm,’ is right. This isn’t the palim-whatsit, is it?” MacLean shook the three pages in his hand, heavy yellowed parchment rattling.
“No, that’s just a letter.”
Mac set aside the letter and continued searching the old steamer trunk.
“Maybe the palimpsest isn’t in there, Mac.”
“Well, the guy stole it ’cause he thought it was valuable. If his letter survived all these years, what about the...?”
“Palimpsest.”
Mac mumbled, sifting through the contents of the trunk.
“Who knows if the letter is even real, hon.”
“Look at that thing,” implored Mac, “Look how old it is.”
“Well, it does look old, that’s for sure.” Mira carefully flipped the crinkled pages; one had writing blurred by a dark brown stain. “Looks like somebody spilled coffee on it.”
“What?!” Mac swiped the letter, turned the stationery this way and that, examining it under lamplight. “Blood’s that color when it dries.”
Exasperated, Mira rolled her eyes, yet when Mac went back to inspecting the steamer trunk’s contents, she couldn’t help but examine once more that dark blotch on the page; she didn’t want to think it was blood. She kneeled beside Mac at the open trunk as he pulled out an old flannel shirt.
Mira got a whiff, “Eeewww. I don’t think that got washed before it got put in there.”
Mac spread out the shirt arms. “It’s in good shape though. Might fit me.”
“Are you kidding? That’s going straight in the trash, mister. The stench on that shirt has its own zip code.”
Mira grabbed the shirt and tossed it toward the back hall, which led to the porch and garbage can outside.
“I doubt the palimpsest is in there, hon. Look.”
She pointed out a faded sticker on the rear bottom corner of the trunk, not a souvenir from faraway Singapore, Morocco, or even New Jersey, but rather a faded and worn sales sticker from K-Mart.
“That’s probably from the seventies,” she said.
“Some of the stuff in here is older than that, though. The guy who died was in his nineties.”
“You have to stop going to these estate auctions, hon. At least until we can afford to buy the good stuff. Not these sealed trunks with the mystery contents.”
“Hey listen, spending all kinds of money for a painting with a gilded frame will only get me so much in return. This is where the true treasures are found, the kinda stuff people go nuts for on eBay. Like that old toy truck I found last February, remember?”
“You can’t win the lottery every time. These mystery crates are like when we were in school and once a month the cafeteria would cart out its ‘Chef’s Surprise.’ How many times was that a winner?”